Juno – hilarious and adorable, with witty dialogue (from very hot newbie screenwriter Diablo Cody) and a wonderful cast including veterans of Arrested Development and several comic book movies. Cute soundtrack for a fun, quirky, cute overall movie.
Hitman – mostly a disappointing action movie based on a video game I have never played. The Bourne trilogy and The Professional did everything better, but Timothy Olyphant (Seth Bullock from Deadwood) was still cool as Agent 47, the stoic hitman “hero.”
P.S. I Love You – P.S. I hated this chick flick about a man who is still thoughtful and romantic even after he dies, but I liked a lot of the cast: Gerard Butler, Harry Connick Jr., the uber-hot Gina Gershon, James “Spike” Marsters, and singer Nellie McKay. Notice I didn’t say I liked the lead, Hilary Swank.
Walk Hard – as much as I love Johnny Cash and enjoyed Walk the Line, I also liked this skewering of melodramatic music biopics and that movie in particular. John C. Reilly did all his own singing and playing, the original songs were great on their own rather than just decent disposable joke songs, Jenna Fischer has never looked hotter or sexier, and the supporting cast and cameos were terrific. Jack White made a hilarious Elvis and Paul Rudd was awesome as John Lennon!
No Country for Old Men–unpredictable, unconventional, far from formulaic. The Coens are brilliant.
Into The Wild–Doesn’t matter if you admire or vilify the fellow that it’s about; it’s a great performance by Emile Hirsch and nice direction by Sean Penn, plus lots of gorgeous photography.
Swing Kids–could have been better, but an interesting look at a largely unknown bit of history. Good soundtrack too.
Mostly I’ve been watching TV shows from cable on DVD, so no other films come to mind at this point.
2 DVD’s that I’ve watched today:
Waking Ned Devine - just found out recently that it was filmed on Man, and not Ireland at all. I still like it.
Local Hero - love this movie. It was the first DVD I bought.
2 at the theatre:
Golden Compass - I liked it. I’ve now bought the book. I’m not sure when I’ll get around to reading it, but the flap from certain Christian groups annoyed me enough to buy it.
Enchanted - a light and fun movie. I thought that Amy Adams and Susan Sarandon were great. Oddly enough for a Disney movie, I thought that the animation at the beginning was second rate, except for some of the scenes featuring Susan Sarandon’s character.
I’ve been catching up on all the movies I missed from this year, so there are a few DVD reviews. To whit:
Spiderman 3: Not as bad as the internet would lead you to believe, but it still fell pretty far short of the first movie. That’s setting the bar pretty high, though. I enjoyed it, but agree with the general sentiment that they tried to fit too much in. Bruce Campbell is awesome as always.
1408: This was really good, but could’ve been a great movie if they’d made it a little longer and had some more subtle creepiness at first. I’m not complaining.
Stardust: Easily the best movie I’ve seen in a long time.
Juno: As soon as I saw the movie poster selling the movie based on its witty dialog, I knew I was going to hate this. I was right. At first I thought that it was just utter crap and had nothing going for it, but on reflection I think the problem is that it feels like they produced the first draft of the script.
Elf – Starts out strong, but becomes lame and cliched once Buddy leaves the North Pole. A disappointment. (As an aside, the workings of the publisher are ludicrously wrong – they’re showing a TV production company, not a book publisher).
Tideland – Fascinating visually, like all Terry Gilliam, and not really plotted well, but some nice weirdness. I wonder about the kid, though.
Cashback – Great little film about a man who imagines he can stop time. Not what you might expect, even from the DVD cover.
*I Am Legend * - Will Smith was great but the zombies aren’t.
Charlie Wilson’s War - Interesting and amusing part of American history I’d never heard of before. I want an office staff like the one Charlie Wilson had.
American Gangster - Remind me never to get Denzel Washington’s character mad at me.
Why Did I Get Married? - while the plot is formulaic, it had some very funny laugh lines and some great eye candy.
Some perhaps contrasting opinions on films already mentioned here:
I Am Legend – one hour of near greatness, spoiled by a weirdly slapdash and pointless final act. The Omega Man, despite its datedness, is a more satisfying treatment of the same story, and 28 Days Later is a much more inventive take on the same general subject.
No Country for Old Men – three great performances among the male leads, and one of the many clever tricks of the film is that they never really come in direct contact with each other (save a phone call and an exchange of gunfire at a distance between the characters played by Josh Brolin and Javier Bardem). Double-bill it with Don Siegal’s underrated Charlie Varrick for the odd similarities (and crucial differences) in plot, setting and character.
Death Proof – the (presumably) expanded standalone version that I saw is, in my view, a failure on all levels, having way too much uninteresting dialogue, a flabby, disjointed story and shockingly inert direction of the big set-piece car chase. Tarentino should go back and watch Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry one more time and contemplate where he might have gone wrong here. I will confess to being deeply in love with the both the ultra-badass Kiwi stunt girl and the cupcake in the cheerleader outfit.
Hot Fuzz – hilarious (to me at least) piss-take of American mismatched-buddy action films that remains resolutely British to the core, from the leafy village setting to the precisely thought-out story, and even to the shockingly over-the-top goriness that punctuates the action. What really sells it is Simon Pegg’s well-judged performance; he clearly gets that a lot of the best comedy comes from playing it completely straight in absurd situations.
Charlie Wilson’s War - good film, good script, and good actors but Philip Seymour Hoffman steals the movie. Sweeny Todd - great on every level and will most certainly buy the DVD when it comes out. Music And Lyrics (just shown on HBO) was just ok. Glad I didn’t pay to see it in a movie theater, but it was a decent piece of romantic fluff.
**Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead **- great film, and again, Philip Seymour Hoffman pulls off an amazing performance. The script was excellent.
Superbad–funny at first but it’s too cliched and the cop subplot totally wrecks the movie’s momentum Grindhouse (or whatever Rodriguez’s movie was called)–too busy being cool and nasty to bother with plot or likeable characters Foxfire (the Angelina Jolie movie from '96)–so ridiculously over the top for a movie that’s supposed to be a hard-edged teen drama Becoming Jane–great dialogue, well paced, well thought out conflicts-just a joy to watch
P.S. I love You Loved it. Sad and sentimental but also funny and romantic and tries not to be cliché. Very involving. Great scenery in Ireland. Loved the soundtrack.
Sweeny Todd Was enjoyable as a Tim Burton / Johnny Depp gothic musical. But not on any of my favorites lists, and I don’t know the original musical to compare.
National Treasure 2 Enjoyable mindless fun on par with the original.
Juno Loved it. Great characters (altho Superbad guy was underused). Great dialogue, unique style.
National Treasure 2 - Yay for fun action movies - I’m inspired to rewatch the Indiana Jones movies again for the first time since they were released, now. Riley’s still the type of character you love for being so hapless, and I’m happy that Gates and Chase haven’t lost any of their bickering in their romance. I wish it was out on dvd so I could watch it over and over like the first one. Can’t wait for the inevitable third.
Dead Mary - I was so bored I didn’t quite understand the ending; apparently some people think there’s significance to what I thought was a filler scene. I think they sometimes go out of their way to make pointless horror movies.
Atonement - I hated the main character, but I think that was the point. It’s not really a love story as billed and the title is meant to be sarcasm as best as I can tell.
The Holiday - I didn’t expect much, but ended up liking it quite a lot, watching it twice in about a month. I wonder about the logistics of what would happen after new years, though.
Atonement: Pretty good movie where nobody comes out better in the end. The sort of film that gets nominated for 6+ Academy Awards and is lucky to win one. I don’t agree that this is the “Best Movie of 2007” but it’s one of the better films of 2007.
Waterhorse: It was either this or Alvin, and my wife and I refused to take our daughter to Alvin on grounds that we don’t take our kid to see movies which are obviously crap. Props to my wife who told my sister “We’d rather take Sophie to see Sweeny Todd.” Anyway, Waterhorse was a pretty good kids movie, but predictable.
The General: Buster Keaton taking a train ride. It was enjoyable, but the one thing that bugs me about silent movies is the constant music. The music was pretty good, but I found myself turning it way down after a half-hour.
The US vs. John Lennon: Not very good. 2/3rds of the film was about 60’s protesters in general and the last 1/3 was about the specific issue of Lennons fight with the INS. I enjoyed seeing Lennons interview with Gloria Emerson (of the NY Times) - I had hoped that the entire interview was available online but I didn’t find it.
ETA: Hell, I completely forgot that I’ve seen National Treasure: Book of Secrets since we saw Waterhorse. I think that tells ya all you need to know about the movie: completely forgettable. We took our daughter to see this one and a few hours after leaving the theater we asked her what she thought of the movie. “What movie, daddy?”
(Yeah, we knew it was crap but it was the only film that was “ok” for kids that she hasn’t seen - except for the aforementioned “Alvin”.)
Dead Calm - Good. I liked that there was a woman character who would actually, you know, fight like a real person. You either get the “standing by while her man gets pummeled into the dirt as if she didn’t have two fists of her own” thing or the “40-kg kung fu goddess kicking ass” thing. The Sam Neill character was kinda wasted, though.
Spy Game - Also good. Robert Redford and Brad Pitt can always be trusted to deliver. I liked the flashback stories a hell of a lot more than the main story, though (I couldn’t quite figure out all the politics involved, I’m dumb that way).
Twin Peaks - Fire Walk With Me - Well, I understand why it was panned. If you haven’t seen the show, you’re toast. Still, it had its moments.
Dawn of the Dead (2004 version) - Liked it much more than I expected. I was genuinely disappointed and sad when Andy got bitten.I wanted it to work out.
Atonement - Very moving. Outstanding performances by James McAvoy and the teenage Briony. Had difficulty understanding some of the dialogue and felt it was a bit long, but overall a good film.
Waitress - Charming and quirky. Took dark subject matter and made it lighthearted. Good performance by Keri Russell.
No Country for Old Men - I know I’m supposed to fawn all over this film, but I just didn’t like it. The ending left me cold. Perhaps reading the book would have helped.
Superbad - Very funny in places, but the cops subplot was completely pointless. Meandered too much.